UFC: Rosi Sexton to be first British female ultimate fighter

Originaltext:

Rosi Sexton is a Cambridge University graduate, an osteopath and a mother. And, should you face her in competition, she would have no qualms about breaking your arm.

On Saturday, after a week of training and collecting her eight-year-old son from school, Sexton, nicknamed 'The Surgeon', will step into a steel, octagon-shaped cage and attempt to knock out or incapacitate her Canadian opponent Alexis Davis.

French-born Sexton, 35, competes in mixed martial arts (MMA), a form of combat sport in which fighters draw on disciplines such as judo, wrestling and kick boxing to overpower an opponent. Sexton will be the first British woman to grapple in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the sport's biggest brand.

She admits she was an unlikely candidate for a career in sport - let alone one as brutal as MMA.

"I wasn't the kind of kid you looked at and said 'they're going to be a professional athlete'," she told BBC East Sport from her Manchester home.

Rosi 'The Surgeon' Sexton

 

• Born in Versaille, France, on 16 July 1977 before moving to Reading as a child
• First in mathematics from Cambridge University, a PhD in theoretical computer science at Manchester University and a BSc in osteopathy from Oxford Brookes University
• Black belt in taekwondo, black belt in TJF jujutsu, brown belt in Brazilian jujutsu
• Former Cage Warriors Women's 132lb champion and BodogFight Women's 125lb champion
• 15 professional fights: 13 wins (seven by submission, two by KO, four by decision) and two losses (both by KO)

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